


casual friday

by LugianBeforeSwine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Lance and Allura are siblings, M/M, help me make that an established tag, keith the sexy accountant, lance is the best uncle ever, take your child to work day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 00:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10978875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LugianBeforeSwine/pseuds/LugianBeforeSwine
Summary: Lance mentally prepares himself for his inevitable death at his sister’s hands. He can see his tombstone now:Here lies Lance McClain,it reads.This insufferable dipshit managed to lose a child in the span of five minutes.aka serendipitous temporary misplacement of your nephew





	casual friday

“Uncle Lance, Mommy said your hair is getting too long,” Charlie proclaims, pointing an accusing finger at Lance’s head.

“Tell your mother that if anybody’s hair is getting too long, it’s hers,” Lance replies, typing diligently away at a spreadsheet.

“Mommy also said that she knows her hair is long, but at least she takes very good care of it,” Charlie recites, nodding as if to affirm that that is indeed exactly what she said.

“Excuse me,” Lance says, eyeing his nephew with a look of mock disdain, “I take excellent care of my hair.” He runs his fingers through it, intending to prove his point, but each one of his fingers gets stuck in an individual snarl.

Charlie laughs gleefully, pointing at him.

“Okay, so I didn’t have time to comb it today! I was busy trying to get you—” He pokes his finger into Charlie’s abdomen, making him giggle even more, “out the door this morning!”

“Uncle Lance,” Charlie says, still grinning, “I was waiting in your car for you _forever_.”

“It was five minutes at most.”

“ _Foreeeeeever_.”

Lance rolls his eyes, smiling, and ruffles his nephew’s hair. “Whatever, shrimp. Why don’t you go see what the other kids are doing while I go get our lunches?”

“Okay,” Charlie agrees, and hops down off his chair. There’s a group of other young kids gathered around a table at the far end of the room, where Lance’s supervisor, a friendly middle-aged woman, appears to be telling them a story. Lance watches as Charlie effortlessly squeezes himself into the group, then he exits their office and heads down the hall to the break room.

It was shaping up to be a pretty good Take-Your-Child-To-Work Day, Lance muses to himself as he inputs the passcode into the break room door. His job as a salesman wasn’t all that interesting, especially since he didn’t have any meetings with clients today, but Charlie seemed to be entertained nonetheless, peeking over Lance’s shoulder to see what he was doing on the computer, or spinning around in his borrowed desk chair, chattering away about anything and everything. Allura was going to be so pleased. Her son was exhibiting model behavior, and her brother…well, Lance thinks, smiling smugly to himself, her brother was doing a damn good job at babysitting.

Lance whistles a little as he heads back to the office, his own Tupperware container of pasta in one hand and Charlie’s Voltron lunchbox in the other. He deftly swings the office door open with his foot, a move he has practiced many times, and strides over to his desk, setting the food down. The group of kids from a few minutes prior seems to have dispersed, so Lance strolls around his coworkers’ desks, figuring Charlie must be sitting with one of the other children and their parent.

He’s not. In fact, Lance doesn’t see Charlie anywhere. A frantic survey of his coworkers reveals that none of them have seen Charlie since the story group had spread out. Two of his coworkers volunteer to help him search the building, and Lance thanks them profusely before bursting through the door and out into the hallway. As the three of them begin walking in separate directions, calling out Charlie’s name, Lance mentally prepares himself for his inevitable death at his sister’s hands. He can see his tombstone now: _Here lies Lance McClain_ , it reads. _This insufferable dipshit managed to lose a child in the span of five minutes._

It doesn’t help that the building is huge. The company Lance works for takes up the entire third floor, but there are six floors all together, and Charlie could be anywhere on any one of them. It takes Lance nearly fifteen minutes to thoroughly sweep half of the third floor, and he’s about to double back and start on the other half when he hears a distinctly familiar laugh.

Through the window of the office that he’s currently standing next to, he can see Charlie, with a wide-eyed grin on his face, talking to someone who Lance can’t see.

The glass door to the office slams against the window, and Lance doesn’t have the extra space in his brain to check and see if he’s broken anything. He rushes towards Charlie, shouting his name, and Charlie turns to him, his grin somehow growing even wider.

“Charlie!” Lance repeats, sweeping the six-year-old up in his arms. “You scared me to death! Why did you leave the office?!”

Charlie shrugs in Lance’s arms. “I got bored,” he says simply.

Lance gapes at him and sets him back down. “You got _bored_ —”

“Anyway, Uncle Lance!” Charlie interrupts cheerfully. “I made a new friend!”

“What—” Lance starts, and then cuts himself off as he turns to face a man standing a few feet away. One side of the man’s mouth quirks up into a half-smile, and he shrugs helplessly, as if to say _well, what can you do?_

Lance’s heart is already racing from the lingering vestiges of his fear and adrenaline, and this stranger—this _incredibly fucking attractive_ stranger—is not helping matters at all.

Before Lance can say anything, Charlie points to Hot Stranger and says, “Uncle Lance, this is Keef! He has a FIREBIRD!”

Lance has no idea what to say. The combination of relief, elation, and anxiety he’s feeling is a cocktail of conflicting emotions that his brain has trouble processing. Hot Stranger steps forward and holds out his hand to Lance, and Lance has to concentrate very hard on dispelling the quivers from his own outstretched arm as he shakes Hot Stranger’s hand. Hot Stranger is wearing a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing toned arms that Lance can’t help but be a little jealous of. He tentatively moves his gaze up to the man’s face and immediately kind of wishes he hadn’t. He has dark eyes that shine behind his blue-rimmed glasses, and his black hair is pulled back into a small ponytail. The thing that finally snaps Lance out of his daze is the conspicuous red pencil tucked behind Hot Stranger’s ear.

“I didn’t realize people actually did that,” Lance blurts with no input whatsoever from his brain. He snickers before he realizes that he’s probably coming off as rude right now, and that’s the last thing Lance wants Hot Stranger to think of him as.

“Umm…did what?” Hot Stranger asks, cocking his head to the side in confusion.

“The, uhh. The pencil-behind-the-ear thing,” Lance babbles, then figures that he should probably introduce himself if he wants any chance at salvaging this wreck of a conversation. “I’m Lance, by the way,” he says quickly, “from sales. And this is my nephew, Charlie,” he adds, gesturing to the boy next to him, who has been suspiciously quiet throughout this exchange.

Hot Stranger smiles down at Charlie. “Yeah, we met,” he says. He raises his eyes back to Lance. “I’m Keith,” he says. “And, uhh, this is the accounting department.”

“Oh,” Lance says. He cannot tear his eyes away from Keith. It’s gotta be getting weird for him, the intensity of Lance’s stare. Lance summons all of his willpower to try to shift his gaze—

“It’s casual Friday,” Keith says out of nowhere. Lance is at a loss. What does that have to do with anything—oh. Does Keith think _that’s_ why Lance was staring at him?

“Oh, uhh, so that’s why your sleeves are rolled up?” he asks, trying to be casual. Yeah, he’ll just play this off as him wondering about Keith’s work attire.

“And my shirt is untucked,” Keith confirms, sounding almost proud. Lance absolutely cannot handle this. He casts around for an out, and just as his eyes land on Charlie, who he had nearly forgotten about, the boy speaks up at last.

“Uncle Lance,” Charlie begins very seriously, “Mommy told me that you barely have any friends.”

“Woah there, buddy!” Lance exclaims, completely taken aback. “That’s not true, I have—”

“AND SO,” Charlie interrupts loudly. Keith is snickering behind his hand. Suddenly Lance thinks death doesn’t sound quite so bad. “I think you and Keef should be friends.”

“Well, I—we just met, shrimp, so—I can’t believe Allura said I don’t have any friends! Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of sacred bond between siblings—”

“Uncle Lance thinks Mommy is terrifying,” Charlie says, leaning closer to Keith, who bursts out laughing.

Lance is sure his face is flushed bright red, and he’s not sure how much more of this he can take. “Charlie, bud,” he says, eyes pleading, “can you go sit down on that chair right there so the adults can talk?”

“Okay,” Charlie agrees, walking to the nearest cubicle, which Lance assumes belongs to Keith, and planting himself in the desk chair.

Lance looks Keith in the eyes, trying his best to show nothing but sincerity in his face as he says, “Thank you for finding him. I swear I’m not a terrible uncle; I left him with my supervisor and some other kids, but…” he sighs, looking over his shoulder towards Charlie. “He’s so curious, I should have known he wouldn’t stay put…”

“It’s alright,” Keith says, a hint of mirth still dancing in his eyes. His smile is soft and small and it makes Lance’s knees want to buckle. “Your nephew is very interesting company. He knows quite a bit about cars.”

“Yeah,” Lance says, relieved at the change of subject, “he’s really into classic cars right now. He keeps saying he wants to be a racecar driver when he grows up.”

“That’s what I wanted to be, too,” Keith says. He smiles ruefully. “But instead I became an accountant.”

“Much less dangerous,” Lance offers.

“I dunno,” Keith says, a slow smirk appearing on his face, “sometimes my computer gets a little hot to the touch. A common workplace hazard, so I’ve heard.”

Lance can’t help it—he bursts out laughing. Keith grins at him. Charlie wanders back over to them and tugs on Lance’s hand.

“Uncle Lance, Keef said I could see his Firebird if it’s okay with you. Can I see it? Pleeeeease?”

“Sorry, shrimp,” Lance says, “but I gotta get back to work.” He pauses and looks back at Keith. “But maybe, umm, after our shifts end…we could go see it?”

“Of course,” Keith says. He shoots Lance a shy smile, and Lance nearly combusts on the spot.

“Hooray!” Charlie shouts.

“Then, uhh, we’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” Keith says. “See you later.”

“Bye, Keef!” Charlie calls as the office door shuts behind them.

Not that he would ever say as much out loud, Lance thinks as he and Charlie walk back to the sales office, but he’s kind of glad he lost his nephew for a little while today.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you're curious, the reason Allura herself couldn't take her son to work is because she's an ER nurse. :)
> 
> Say hi to me on tumblr? @ deadpan-snarker


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